The present invention relates to a two-way broadcasting system and a receiving unit therefor. More particularly, the present invention relates to a broadcast system and receiver which are capable of providing interactive communications over a telephone line.
Two-way television broadcast systems have been proposed in which a telephone number is transmitted from a television broadcast station and superimposed over the video picture on the viewer's television display screen. Viewers are then asked to respond via telephone or facsimile within a preselected time. Such system is commonly found in television shopping programs, quiz shows, polling surveys, or similar such programs which require view participation. Viewers then respond by phoning in their replies via telephone, facsimile or the like. Such a system has been proposed in the U.S. patent application entitled "Multiplex Broadcasting System", Ser. No. 08/355,132, filed Dec. 13, 1994 and the U.S. patent application entitled System and Method For Responding To Two-Way Broadcast Programs (Hidoshi Yoshinobu), Ser. No. 08/395,253, filed Feb. 28, 1995, both of which are assigned to the assignee of this application and which are incorporated by reference herein.
The above two-way broadcasting system, however, has the following disadvantages: First, when a viewer dials the displayed telephone number in order to send a reply via the above two-way broadcast program, the number dialed may be improperly switched and thus the wrong number reached. Additionally, under the above system, the viewer generally makes a request orally and then awaits a reply confirming his request and/or receipt of his call. This generally takes a considerable amount of time which increases the cost of the telephone call to the viewer and increases the load applied to the telephone line.
A solution to these problems has been proposed in Japan by Nippon-Telephone and Telegraph Company (NTT) via a service called "Tele-gong.TM." from a telephone service station.
The operation of the "Tele-gong.TM." system may be examined as follows: During a viewer participation type quiz program, accepting telephone numbers are assigned to receive a plurality of replies in response to one question. The number of replies transmitted from viewers through their respective individual telephone numbers are counted and collected at each telephone service station on the transmitting side, and then a signal representing the collected data is sent to the broadcasting station side. Upon the reception of that signal, the transmission of the viewer's reply is substantially completed and the call can be terminated which again reduces the circuit load. Furthermore, the participating viewer can also place the telephone in the on-hook state directly after the reception of the signal, and thereby reduce the cost of his telephone call.
In the "Tele-gong.TM." system, however, the viewer must dial a long telephone number to access the system. For example, the viewer may be required to dial a 10 digit number such as 0180-XX-XXXX in order to transmit a first reply. If the viewer forgets the correct number to be dialed, or dials the number incorrectly, he has wasted a sometimes costly call and has needlessly added to the telephone circuit load.
An additional disadvantage with the "Tele-gong.TM." system is that while the telephone line can be cut-off directly after the reception of the signal, the viewer often listens to message(s) transmitted via the system, and thereby does not hang up the telephone until the transmitted message(s) are completed and the "Tele-gong.TM." side hangs up.
Furthermore, in the case where the viewer accidentally dials a telephone number different from the accepting telephone number, a third party having that telephone number actually dialed by the viewer, (and similar to the accepting telephone number) frequently receives unwanted and irritating calls.
To prevent the above problems involving misdialing, it has been suggested that the broadcasting side broadcast a main broadcast signal multiplexed with information such as access data related to the program for two-way broadcasting, and that the receiving side then stores that information separate from the demodulated broadcast signal in memory to utilize the information for automatic dialing.
Even with this method, however, there is concern that the destination telephone number is still not correctly dialed and received due to the potentially poor quality of the receiving state.